MEMORIES fade. The legacy lasts ... as does the football club, just as Greg Boulton proudly exclaimed 30 years ago while holding a hard-earned AFL licence before jubilant members at Alberton Oval.

Today, December 13, marks the 30th anniversary of the public declaration at SANFL headquarters at West Lakes - after four days of final negotiations - that the Port Adelaide Football Club would take its long-cherished place on the national stage in an expanding AFL competition.

Of all the significant achievements across 124 years since inception in 1870, the resilience and focus Port Adelaide garnered after the brutal disappointment of having its national ambitions blocked by the SANFL clubs in 1990 remains the ultimate example of what the club achieves when united and determined.

"We were absolutely united," says then president Greg Boulton, who commanded the second bid for AFL status after Bruce Weber's bold attempt in 1990.

"In the boardroom we had a single-minded approach to keep winning on the field in the SANFL - and ultimately win off the field with an AFL licence."

And across the clubhouse, notes then chief executive Brian Cunningham, "everyone went to work to fulfil that ambition. No-one was coerced. Everyone willingly did their part to make sure we succeeded. It is one of our proudest moments of what this club can achieve when we all want the same result."

Cunningham, a three-time premiership captain and local hero, returned to the Port Adelaide Football Club in March 1992 when the nerves of its community were still battered and bruised from the failure of the 1990 bid and the accusation of "treachery" to SA football.

"I walked into a clubhouse with so many people still burnt from 1990," recalls Cunningham.

Boulton, who succeeded 1990 bid leader Bruce Weber as club president, had three demands of a new chief executive - and none was directly tied to a second AFL campaign.

"One," says Boulton, "the chief executive had to be culturally aligned to Port Adelaide's winning attitude; two, leadership such as a premiership captain would have; three, an outstanding reputation and integrity to counter all we lost in 1990. Brian Cunningham."

Seeking an AFL licence was never put to Cunningham in the sales pitch to return to Alberton. 

"Not once in my interview," says Cunningham, "was I told, 'You have to get us in the AFL'."

But when Port Adelaide - in December 1992 - decided to seek national status the second bid was true to Cunningham's pristine reputation - integrity, honesty and transparency. 

For two years, the Port Adelaide campaign for an AFL licence filled newspaper pages day after day, overloaded talkback radio switchboards and took football to the top of television news bulletins.

And then for five days between Friday, December 9 and Tuesday, December 13, 1994 the final negotiations between the SANFL (the official licence holder) and Port Adelaide (the sub-licence until liberation in 2014) demanded discretion.

What happened across those five days?

On Friday, December 9, 1994, SANFL chief executive Leigh Whicker confirmed to Boulton and Cunningham that every recommendation from the league's review panels and special sub-committees had acknowledged Port Adelaide as the ideal holder for an AFL licence.

But there was a catch. Contrary to the league's own bidding criteria demanding the winning candidate remove itself from the SANFL competition - to set up an eight-team league - Port Adelaide had to maintain its presence in the State series. But the dual Port Adelaide AFL and SANFL entities had to be completely separate.

"Not what we expected, but we were not going to say, 'No thanks'," said Cunningham who had been negotiating for a "reserves team with 10 top-up players" at local amateur club, Port Districts - a throwback to the Port Adelaide-Semaphore connection before the 1930s.

"We went back to Alberton having to plan for an SANFL team."

The weekend passed in meeting mode, calling in outsiders such as public relations master Rob Ball to plan how Port Adelaide "handled" the impending announcement of promotion to a 16-team AFL.

On Monday, December 12, 1994, the Port Adelaide Football Club board convened for a special meeting at Alberton. The directors voted to formally accept the "offer" to hold the AFL licence granted to the SANFL.

"It was not a long meeting ... ," recalls Boulton. 

And no champagne, even with a long, demanding campaign for an AFL licence won. 

"A few beers," said Boulton. "There was now even more to do. And we had high energy in that room to get on with it. The planning was well underway."

There also was reason to acknowledge and thank those in a united football club who had taken Port Adelaide from suburbia to the national competition.

"Staff, members, the 96 Club ... while we had plenty to do, we also were going to celebrate with our people. They played such an important role in proving we were the right club for the AFL."

At 3.30pm on Tuesday, December 13, 1994 the SA Football Commission told its league directors at West Lakes of the much-anticipated decision to confirm Port Adelaide's rise to the AFL.

SANFL president Max Basheer was quizzed by just three clubs - Norwood, Central District and North Adelaide. The key questions were based on the commission's unexpected decision to keep Port Adelaide in the SANFL (contrary to the bid guidelines) and reassurances the AFL licence would remain in SANFL hands.

Boulton entered that league directors' meeting to make what he regards as a "diplomatic" statement that is shared publicly for the first time now. He presented an image of Port Adelaide working hand-in-hand with the SANFL ... "a joint venture ... and we will do everything in our power to establish, foster and develop (the partnership with the SANFL clubs)."

Just 15 years later, this concept was completely broken as clearly noted with the damaging political game that put Port Adelaide again - as in 1990 - between competing power plays from the SANFL and AFL.

Boulton's "statement to the league directors" included a critical theme: "Our philosophy that winning football games is the foundation for everything else (ensured Port Adelaide won the licence)."

"No-one quickly jumped out of their seats to congratulate us," recalls Boulton. "Peter Alexander (from South Adelaide) did say 'Well done'." I remember a lot of sad faces in that room."

Immediately after this "victory speech", Boulton stepped into the main function room at Football Park to sit alongside AFL chief executive Ross Oakley and SANFL president Max Basheer for a press conference Boulton recalls was "matter of fact".

And the most-telling and most-recalled memory of the media session - even for Boulton today - was the glum look on Norwood president Nerio Ferraro. Concern at having missed the last chance to enter the AFL or regret at passing up the invitation put to Norwood at The Parade by three VFL representatives in 1990?

"We had won," says Boulton. "And we could not even uncork a bottle of champagne. Even a beer was out of the question. We did not hang around Football Park either. We had - by pure coincidence - an annual general meeting to get back to at Alberton."

Coaches leave hard-earned premiership triumphs on grand final day feeling "relief" rather than grand elation.

"It was the same for us - more relief than anything else," says Boulton of his emotions by the end of December 13, 1994.

But no reprieve from an all-consuming agenda at Alberton, notes Cunningham.

"Our task was to work out what it would take to succeed in the AFL," said Cunningham. "We had worked hard for two years to get to this point and we were going to work our backsides off again for another two years before that first game in 1997."

The key point of a united (and thereby powerful) Port Adelaide Football Club was underlined when Cunningham looked around the room while the members at the annual meeting were asked to vote on the board's motion to accept the AFL licence.

"It is my strongest memory of the night," says Cunningham. "No-one raised a hand to reject the sub-licence. I kept looking around the room. There was a sea of hands in favour; not one against."

Port Adelaide was forced to wait until 1997 - a year longer than the original five-year monopoly granted as protection for the first SANFL-held licence issued in 1990 - while the AFL created its 16th spot in a national competition with teams in every mainland state. The merger of a bankrupt Fitzroy with Brisbane at the end of the 1996 season changed the national game while the AFL packed the party balloons from centenary celebrations of the VFL foundation season in 1897.

South Australian football was already in a mode of significant change from December 13, 1994 with the announcement of Port Adelaide's rise to the AFL. But not enough for one female Port Adelaide member who took the microphone to ask at the annual meeting if "Channel Seven would rename the Crows Show?" 

Cunningham still holds in his files the summary document that accompanied the two suitcases he, Boulton and fellow board member Barry Wilson wheeled across the car park at Football Park to Whicker's office on April 6, 1994. The final submission came to 600 pages.

"We have met or exceeded every prediction and expectation in those bid documents," Cunningham says in his 30-year audit. "We didn't get that sports clinic we pitched to Darren Cahill and Chris Dittmar but Alberton Oval is certainly becoming a community hub more than just a training ground today."